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Should have there been a Muslim on Destiny?

O'Dib

O'Dib

Commodore
Commodore
I was watching the series finale, and there was one visual that I momentarily mistook for something else. Young was bent over, packing something away, I think, and for a second I thought he was someone who is about to place a mat on the floor, go on his knees, and start praying. And then I thought, why not?

SGU tried portraying the stranded characters on Destiny as using religion to cope with their situation, but we only ever ended up with Psalm 23 and the Lord's prayer, the bits that everyone knows. It was more pandering than a true attempt to explore these religious characters.

So what if there had been a practicing Muslim on board? Which way is Mecca when you're 15 galaxies away? How do you survive Ramadan when rations are slim to begin with? SG always did well having at least one character from a vastly different culture, but with only Terrans on board, something like this might've made things more interesting. I imagine even his Earth visits would've had intriguing content. Thoughts?
 
For the most part I agree. I think that would've been interesting. Though I don't think Stargate has had many people from vastly different cultures on their shows (not counting alien cultures). Yeah, there's a lot of people from different countries, but not a lot of focus on their respective cultures. They all seemed pretty Westernized to me.

Also, I disagree with the notion about Muslims having a vastly different culture. There's all types of Muslims, from every ethnic/racial group, in almost all countries, at all strata of society. Only imagination was limiting the writers from having an existing member of Destiny be a Muslim. TJ, Greer, Park, Young, etc., all of them could've fit the bill.

It also wouldn't have hurt to see practicing Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. I think SGA was in a better position, with its larger, multinational group to really explore this issue, but they didn't.
 
I dont really see the need to be honest. Of course its going to be "westernized" because plain and simple, most of the characters were either scientists or US Military. I know that there are a small percentage of Muslims in the US Military, but there aren't many and Scientists tend to distance themselves from Religion.

It would be like watching a show about Russian Military and Russian Scientists and saying that it didn't delve into American philosophy enough. :crazy:
 
Yeah, didn't really see it as a hole to be filled. hate when people go down checklists like that, anyway. What's the point behind putting that in? If there's not a story need, it's just a 'racial/gender stereotype' list that they're going down and ticking things off as they add them.

Like far too many threads about wanting a gay crewmember in Trek somewhere. Not a PROBLEM with that, but what's the difference, really? Either beat people with rhetoric, or ignore it and treat it like it's fine/normal, in which case it has no impact on the story anyway.
 
I imagine, had the "Destiny's mission to discover what existed before the Universe" storyline had a chance to develop further, a devout character on board would've been a nice way to stoke a discussion about it. Also, this guy would've probably been an unlikely ally to Rush in the "mission must continue" side of the camp. Different characters present story opportunities of their own. Obviously I agree though, handled badly, any such addition is detrimental.
 
But why muslim? When you ask the question specifically like that, it's almost like someone's LOOKING to put a check in that box. Would that character have added anything specifically because he was Muslim, as opposed to devout of any other religion?

All for having characters with different backgrounds and life experiences, but don't feel the urge to hit some religious/racial/gender checklist in order to fill out a show. If the writers are hard up enough to go to that well to find conflict/stories, I'm not much interested in what they are presenting.

This kind of problem is all over the Future of Trek forum. Most of the thoughts and argument go into whether the next captain should be black, or a woman, different religion, alien, gay, whatever. More interesting question is WHY, and how that plays into the story. Without just doing lowest common denominator stereotypes, need to think out what you want to do with it, or why it matters. If it ends with "kewl, a black guy in space!", it's a negative, not a positive.

I'd rather they focus on the characters, rather than what color/gender/religion they are. Don't need to be beat over the head with that yet again...

In your example, why would a character being Muslim lead them to be an ally of Dr. Rush? Both have beards? ;) Of all the reasons to be trying to find the answers to the universe (with simply BECAUSE being the most interesting), because someone's devout Muslim is pretty low on the viewer interest scale. Wouldn't that be just as true if they were Catholic, or into Voodoo, or even just an Athiest? I'd think being extra-devout would lead away from that, if anything, because seems pretty unlikely that anything Rush found was gonna match up with what a bunch of shepards and mystics wrote a couple thousand years ago. Heck, the literal Christians are out, as the ship they're riding on is almost a million years older than God says the universe is, right?
 
Scout101 said:
But why muslim? When you ask the question specifically like that, it's almost like someone's LOOKING to put a check in that box. Would that character have added anything specifically because he was Muslim, as opposed to devout of any other religion?
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As I said in the OP, what little of Christianity was portrayed was familiar and uninteresting, and felt exactly like what you're opposed to: lazily ticking off a "religion" check box. As for the crazies that remained on that artificial planet, there's another thing. Writing a Christian has become synonymous with writing a nutcase. So my idea was that they should've challenged themselves to write someone who feels new, different, and actually requires research on part of the writers, as opposed to just putting down on paper all the stereotypes they've developed about Christianity from decades of being beat over the head with it in a culture that's saturated by it. Why Muslim and not any other religion that's a minority in the States? That's just my preference.

This kind of problem is all over the Future of Trek forum. Most of the thoughts and argument go into whether the next captain should be black, or a woman, different religion, alien, gay, whatever. More interesting question is WHY, and how that plays into the story. Without just doing lowest common denominator stereotypes, need to think out what you want to do with it, or why it matters. If it ends with "kewl, a black guy in space!", it's a negative, not a positive.
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Things like gender/race/sexual preference/religion mostly do play into how a character is written, unless we're talking Trek where "hewmons" are basically like one culture of happy people who like fizzy drinks. But even there we had Picard with a brother in France who owns a Vineyard. :lol:

Of all the reasons to be trying to find the answers to the universe (with simply BECAUSE being the most interesting), because someone's devout Muslim is pretty low on the viewer interest scale. Wouldn't that be just as true if they were Catholic, or into Voodoo, or even just an Athiest? I'd think being extra-devout would lead away from that, if anything, because seems pretty unlikely that anything Rush found was gonna match up with what a bunch of shepards and mystics wrote a couple thousand years ago.
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Now you're thinking. ;)
 
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Dennis said:
Scout101 said:
More interesting question is WHY, and how that plays into the story.
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How does being a white guy play into the story?
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Doesn't, so they don't spend much time on how being white plays into the story being told. Assume the OP didn't want a character to be Muslim just so there were different things in the background...

Most of the characters are white, and either not religious, or Christian, because that's what the audience is. Not out of some random racist plan, but because that's what the writers and viewers are familiar with. Don't have to waste time on the setup for that, you can jump right into the story...
 
A Muslim character could have been interesting, if done right. Of course, there's also a serious thread that it would have ended up a very clichéd character.

Look at 24, for instance. Most of the time they either had evil jihadists or PC Muslims ("these people are acting against everything the Quran stands for, blabla").

That being said, I kind of liked Capt. Atish Khatami from the Star Trek: Vanguard novels.
 
Scout101 said:
But why muslim? When you ask the question specifically like that, it's almost like someone's LOOKING to put a check in that box. Would that character have added anything specifically because he was Muslim, as opposed to devout of any other religion?

All for having characters with different backgrounds and life experiences, but don't feel the urge to hit some religious/racial/gender checklist in order to fill out a show. If the writers are hard up enough to go to that well to find conflict/stories, I'm not much interested in what they are presenting.

This kind of problem is all over the Future of Trek forum. Most of the thoughts and argument go into whether the next captain should be black, or a woman, different religion, alien, gay, whatever. More interesting question is WHY, and how that plays into the story. Without just doing lowest common denominator stereotypes, need to think out what you want to do with it, or why it matters. If it ends with "kewl, a black guy in space!", it's a negative, not a positive.

I'd rather they focus on the characters, rather than what color/gender/religion they are. Don't need to be beat over the head with that yet again...

In your example, why would a character being Muslim lead them to be an ally of Dr. Rush? Both have beards? ;) Of all the reasons to be trying to find the answers to the universe (with simply BECAUSE being the most interesting), because someone's devout Muslim is pretty low on the viewer interest scale. Wouldn't that be just as true if they were Catholic, or into Voodoo, or even just an Athiest? I'd think being extra-devout would lead away from that, if anything, because seems pretty unlikely that anything Rush found was gonna match up with what a bunch of shepards and mystics wrote a couple thousand years ago. Heck, the literal Christians are out, as the ship they're riding on is almost a million years older than God says the universe is, right?
Click to expand...

They already have a Christian aboard, so I don't get the "Why Muslim" question.
 
Question is: what would it have added or changed from the storyline, or are we just adding in variety to say we did? Fine if you have things you think it would bring to the story, not as great if it's just "OMG we've got a Muslim/Black chick/gay character!"

Who was identified as the devout christians on board? If a point was made of it, I didn't notice, or blurred over it...
 
The personal religions of the Taur'i characters have never been an issue (baring one offs like The First Commandment (SG-1, S1), sort of, and in Faith, again only sort of) and it doesn't ever need to be an issue. It would just be unnecessary baggage.
 
It would have been a nice little angle to play, but I don't really think that it's conspicuous by it's absence. I suspect the average demographics for the military and scientific community in the US at least would make a Muslim character fairly unlikely among a crew of 80 or so.
 
Eh, I don't think it would be at all unusual (likely amongst the military characters) just struggling to see what difference it would have made in stories, and whether that's positive. Plenty of religious and ethnic groups not represented, but since it wasn't about petty things like that, wouldn't have liked to see it dragged down to those kinds of stories.
 
^
Why likest among the military, seeing the small percentage of American Muslims I would think it would be likest among the international support staff of Icarus. Come to think of it besides Dr. Rush who worked in America was anybody identified as another nationality?
 
I don't think Icarus was an international effort like the Atlantis expedition was. Most of the program still seems to be run by the US military.
 
That's odd I can see military fighting units still being task organized by nations but why would scientist say no to X,Y,Z expeditions that one is America's, Russia's and...
 
So the government recruits from Brown and MIT but ignores Oxford? Seems to make Wray's position even more unnecessary
 
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